The wondrousness of nerdy joy (an open letter to the bullies who tried to break it in me)

When I was ten, I had no concept of “fandom.” But I did know what it felt like to be so excited about a story that I cosplayed as its characters or wrote my own stories about the stories I watched on TV. I knew what it felt like to be so excited about a story that I spent my afternoons after school on the family computer falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes because I was so hungry for more information, no matter how small that nugget might be. I knew what it felt like to spend a week waiting for Sunday morning to see what the preview on the previous Sunday morning meant after spending hours rewatching the preview online and looking for any tiny hint I could find.

I remember being filled with so much joy that I could absolutely burst. I remember trying to spread that joy to anyone who would listen just so I could stave off that coming explosion. And then, I remember that joy being weaponized as the punchline to a joke that crushed me flat under its weight.

One thing I know about myself is that when I find something I love, I fall hard. If its a TV show that turns out to also have books, you better believe that I buy the books. A clever T-shirt quoting a line in the book series I love so much? Don’t mind if I do. And the thing about joy is that it is such a wonderfully pure emotion that you want nothing more than to spill over into every person around you so that they reflect your joy back at you so that the world glows brighter and brighter, little by little.

Which makes me wonder why there are so many people in the world who wish to do nothing more than take that beautiful gift of someone’s joy, offered up to them for free, and crush it under foot.

I have always been a nerd. One of my earliest memories from childhood is back when we still lived in my family’s first home and, sitting at the tiny little kids table while I was under the age of five, I ate breakfast while an episode of Star Trek played on in the background. Another memory, a few years later but while I was still in single digits of age, my brother and I woke up before our parents and were deciding what to do. Our ultimate decision? Watch the Star Wars movie with the Ewoks. Family TV nights were spent watching Stargate SG-1. Later, we also added shows like Eureka and Dead Like Me and Doctor Who into the mix. Shows that asked big questions and invited the audience to consider the answers for themselves. A staple of a nerd’s repertoire.

I adored these shows. I loved the questions they asked about what made us human, what made us good, what made us hurt in such a way that we couldn’t be healed and how to heal anyway. Even before I had the words to describe this feeling, I noticed how much my heart grew with anticipation as I experienced these intriguing shows.

And then, Sonic the Hedgehog arrived on the scene.

I’d always enjoyed content with the blue blur. I remember being very young watching episodes of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog when they showed up on Toon Disney. I remember playing the old Sega Genesis games as a friend’s house, since he was my only friend who had a Sega system. When Sonic X stared airing, I was incredibly excited, but I was terrible about catching episodes and actually missed many of them in the first two seasons.

But it was the game Sonic Adventure 2 Battle that struck my nerdy heart.

I only got my hands on a copy because my brother’s friend from down the street was playing it and allowed us to borrow the game, as was pretty typical in that friendship. But there was something about that game that filled me so full with joy that I couldn’t keep that joy isolated inside me. Maybe it was how the game opens up to the ever-popular song City Escape as Sonic slides through the city streets on a piece of metal as if he’s a snowboarder on fresh powder. Maybe it was the story of mistaken identity and all the different ways a Chaos Emerald could be used. Maybe it was the stakes where Eggman threatened the lives of Sonic’s friends…only to end up (spoiler) tricking Sonic in such a way that it led to his apparent death (he was fine, but Tails didn’t know that!).

The game was compelling in such a way that I had never seen in my ten years of life. Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough. I started drawing the characters. I spent my afternoons digging into every story of the characters I could find on the Internet. I started researching the history of video games with books I obtained from the library. I started telling myself stories featuring the characters and when the stories finally got too long to be held only in my head, I started writing them down (it was still another year before I learned about the concept of fan fiction and this instinct wasn’t isolated within me alone).

The story filled me with a joy like I had never before experienced. I grew obsessed especially with the values Sonic held, his desire to never look back and simply focus on the present moment. As impatient as he was and as obsessed with fun and free as he ran, he was also usually found perching on a tree branch, mid-nap, unhappy to be disturbed by anything less than a brand new adventure. It was the sort of freedom and joy a preteen just didn’t have but wanted with such a passion that they didn’t have the words to describe.

And so Sonic firmly became the source of my nerdy joy. And that joy encouraged me to find nerdy joy in other places as well. I watched every episode of new Doctor Who (and a bunch of the old ones from before I was born). I learned more and more about the popular canon of nerdy fantasy novels and read a few. I used a day off work to go see Detective Pikachu in theaters. I have studied enough of the lore of Five Nights at Freddy’s that I even read one of the novelizations. One of my favorite hobbies is watching video game streamers, for crying out loud! And at work, I have (somewhat accidentally) spent far too much time gushing about RWBY so that my coworkers have actually spent the time to send my a birthday card featuring the character of Ruby Rose!

My nerdy joy has never been without its detractors, however. In fact, it was the main source of the bullying I faced growing up, especially on the Sonic front. When I decided to explode with some piece of Sonic news or a fact I knew, I was sometimes met with rolled eyes and a cruel joke at my expense. I found out about gossip being circulated about me. Which inch by inch, crushed that nerdy joy inside me.

Until, finally, my happy, often extroverted-acting heart, closed off.

For years, I pushed down my nerdy joy into a little box that I held tight to my heart all for myself. No more did I gush about the things that brought me joy. But I also grew afraid of making new friends because I was used to being the butt of jokes. I refused to give up my nerdy joy but I grew so careful about sharing that joy with others. To this day, I still feel the effects of this time period in my life.

But I refuse to give up my nerdy joy. I refuse.

Here’s the thing about nerdy joy: I have a theory that nerds who embrace their joy are in general the happiest of people. They allow themselves to be fully themselves. I watch shows like Dropout’s Um Actually and I am overwhelmed by the joy the show’s contestants have for all things nerdy as they offer the most pedantic of corrections. I even sent my own in (nope, Mewtwo doesn’t technically talk in Pokemon: The First Movie; he speaks through telepathy!). There is such joy in actually embracing what brings you joy.

As of the drafting of this blog, I spent yesterday going to see the second Sonic the Hedgehog movie. I went by myself and sat in a theater mostly populated with small children and their moms. But I also made a point of telling my coworkers where I was going. Because I refuse to apologize for what brings me joy. What fills my heart. After I saw the movie (at the mall, FYI), I found a little stand selling a plushie of Amy Rose’s (character from Sonic universe) classic design from back in Sonic CD. When the person servicing the stand asked if I wanted a bag for my purchase, I hesitated a moment before I said no. I wondered if I should say yes and hide the nerdy joy that I had been so often taught to feel ashamed of. But I will not be ashamed of what brings me joy, certainly not when it’s something so small as a fun little plush toy.

Nerdy joy is a part of me. I am not myself if I don’t embrace this part of myself. And so, I refuse to change for those voices that tried to crush me down into a tiny little box. And if you have a source of nerdy joy, I beg you to do the same. Your nerdiest of joys is worth embracing. There is no shame in feeling joy.

Nerds are wonderful. As we go on in this world, I hope more people embrace their nerdy wonder. Imagine how much better this world would be if we all embraced those little things that filled our hearts so full that all we could do was share that joy with all those around us.